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Atlantic Council blogs provide short-form analyses from Council experts and a wider community of global voices on the world’s most important news stories.
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MENASource

Mar 3, 2015

Top News: The United States will protect Syrian rebels when time comes

By MENASource

The United States will be ready to “protect” mainstream Syrian rebels possibly with air power once they enter into combat, Anti-ISIS Coalition Envoy retired US General John Allen said Monday at an event organized by the Atlantic Council.

FutureSource

Mar 3, 2015

(Driverless) Car Culture

By Daniel Pearson

In February, the British Government began trials of driverless cars in four UK cities. And while the vehicles currently being tested are small, slow, and restricted to pedestrianized streets and plazas, initial impressions make one thing clear: the cars of the future will not only look very different, but will be used differently to those […]

MENASource

Mar 3, 2015

The MENA Legitimacy Challenge

By Frederic C. Hof

One of the few academic memories I have from an uninspiring undergraduate career centers on a class in comparative politics. The professor was lecturing on modern—meaning late 1960s—politics in the Middle East. The following words have stayed with me for the better part of a half century: “Ladies and gentlemen, there is one question still […]

Middle East

EconoGraphics

Mar 3, 2015

Who Will Collapse First?

By Global Business & Economics

Both the Ukrainian and Russian economies are suffering from recent events. While weak domestic institutions and a fight with insurgents in the country's East plague Ukraine, sanctions and low prices for oil and gas are hurting the Russian economy.

Economy & Business Europe & Eurasia

UkraineAlert

Mar 3, 2015

Europe Averts Winter Gas Cutoff for Now with Ukraine-Russia Deal

By New Atlanticist

For Long-Term Security, EU Should Push Moscow to Obey Rules and Kyiv to Reform Gas Sector By brokering a March 2 interim gas deal between Ukraine and Russia, the European Union helped avert a wintertime cutoff of gas to Ukraine and other parts of Europe. Russia had threatened to halt supplies to Ukraine in the […]

Energy & Environment Energy Markets & Governance

New Atlanticist

Mar 3, 2015

As NATO Seeks a Response to Russia, Is It Getting Enough Exercise?

By New Atlanticist

Raw Numbers on Military Drills Suggest a Gap in the West’s Deterrence Readers who don’t specialize in NATO or military affairs may have missed a report from the NATOSource blog last week on a wide gap between the scale of military exercises conducted by Russia and by the NATO alliance. In the past two years, […]

UkraineAlert

Mar 3, 2015

To Secure Europe’s Energy, Build a Market and Integrate Ukraine

By Basil Kalymon and Adonis Yatchew

Europe Should Press Moscow to Respect EU Rules—and Kyiv to End Gas Monopoly In recent days, Russia has once more threatened the security of Europe’s gas supplies by announcing that it will refuse to pipe gas through Ukraine and will require that a southern alternative be built through Turkey. The European gas supply system has […]

Energy & Environment Energy Markets & Governance
Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Feb. 4, 2015

NATOSource

Mar 2, 2015

Norwegian Defense Minister: NATO Decision Making Process Too Slow To Deal with Emerging Crises

By Mick Krever, CNN

Western relations with Russia will never again be the same after the war in Ukraine, Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.

NATO Northern Europe

UkraineAlert

Mar 2, 2015

Is the IMF Bailout Enough for Ukraine?

By Ashish Kumar Sen

MIT Economist Says Rescue Plan Is Too Small, May Need Adjustment An International Monetary Fund bailout for Ukraine underestimates the banking sector’s needs and is unrealistic about government expenditure on security and defense, according to Andrei Kirilenko, a Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ukraine has secured a $40 billion bailout from the IMF […]

Ukraine

MENASource

Mar 2, 2015

Top News: Egypt’s March Parliamentary Elections on Hold

By EgyptSource

Egypt’s parliamentary elections are on hold until further review of a ruling on the unconstitutionality of a law defining voter constituencies, the spokesman for the Higher Electoral Commision (HEC) said on Sunday. The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled earlier in the day that Article 3 the Constituencies Law issued by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was “unconstitutional,” […]